fragmenting palestine

PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
May 2013
I NTRO D U CTI O N
S
TH
This bulletin will explore the history of partition in Palestine, from the 1937
Peel Commission recommendations through to the current status of Palestine
as negotiated at Oslo in 1993 and during subsequent renegotiations. It will illustrate the history of the partition of Palestine as a result of colonization, ethnic
cleansing and military aggression by Israel and its political maneuverings, and the
effects of this on the Palestinian people.
R IA
The contradictory commitment of the Mandate to protect and facilitate the
development of the native population on one hand, and provide for the ongoing immigration of exclusivist Zionists on the other, resulted in conflict as the
Palestinians attempted to resist this policy. Numerous plans to partition the
country followed, regardless of whether the Palestinians themselves consented
to the dismemberment of their homeland, as the British and later the international community attempted – unsuccessfully – to foster peace. Zionist military
successes in the 1948 War meant that the new Zionist entity was given a free
hand to continue the colonization, ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land.
The Nakba of 1948, the June War of 1967 and the Israeli Zionist policy have left
Palestinians today owning just 8% of their historic land.2
RE
With Allied victory in WWI, the League of Nations delegated Great Britain the
‘Mandate for Palestine,’ granting it quasi-colonial authority and administrative
rights over Palestine, including a provision to uphold the Balfour Declaration
– promising “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people… It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine.” Under the Mandate, British authorities oversaw and supported an
ongoing appropriation of Palestinian land by Zionist immigrants who sought to
make Palestine ‘quantitatively and qualitatively Jewish,’1 while failing to protect
the rights of the Palestinians as stipulated in the Mandate.
SAFAD
ACRE
ZA
HAIFA
BEISAN
TULKAREM
Medit erra n ea n
S ea
NABLUS
JAFFA
RAMLEH
RAMALLAH
JERUSALEM
GAZA
TRANSJORDAN
JENIN
JERICHO
BETHLEHEM
HEBRON
De ad Se a
Entrenched in World War One (WWI), Great Britain sought to gain allies in
order to tip the balance of power in its favor. In the Middle East, it did so
by entering into three contradictory and conflicting agreements regarding the
post-war environment. Initially, the British-Arab 1915 Hussein-McMahon correspondence promised the Arabs full independence in exchange for support in
the war against the Ottoman Empire. Directly contradicting this however were
the 1916 Sykes-Picot secret documents between Britain and France meant to
divide large swathes of the Middle East, including Palestine, into spheres of French
and British influence, while the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration attempted to
attain Jewish allies by supporting the Zionist plans to create a Jewish homeland
in Palestine. Through these contradictions, Britain cultivated the environment
which would result in the occupation and colonization of Palestine.
Palestine, 1931
NA
Partitions have been used throughout history by imperial powers to colonize,
divide up resources and control land between themselves and to assist a retreat
from a territory; where conflict makes occupation or colonization unsustainable, occupying powers have engaged in a strategy of ‘divide and quit’, implementing a top-down solution which physically separates conflicting parties so
that forces can withdraw. Such policy frequently involves uprooting indigenous
inhabitants through forced transfer. Even after countries are split, violence can
still erupt as contested territories are fought over and new states struggle to
deal with refugee influx from population transfer, while those who are left behind face persecution as a minority in a hostile state.
LEBANON
T I BE
Over the last 100 years, the Palestinian people have resisted and endured
numerous challenges and attempts to fragment their homeland, which have
become endemic of their history of oppression. Partition has evolved from
misguided attempts to manage the conflict towards systematic attempts to
contain and delegitimize the Palestinian historical, national and human rights to
their homeland.
BIR SABA
Map: M. Davies, 2001
1915: Hussein Bin Ali - Sir Henry McMahon
1916: Sir Mark Sykes - François Georges-Picot
Kisch, Frederick H., “Letter to Zionist Executive Secretary Leonard Stein, London, 12 December 1922,” in Mahdi Abdul Hadi (ed.), Documents on Palestine Vol
I: 1900-1947, Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2007, pp. 138-139.
2
MEMO, Data shows that Palestinians now own just 8% of historic Palestine, 28 May 2013, http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/6132-data-showsthat-palestinians-now-own-just-8-per-cent-of-historic-palestine.
1
PASSIA
Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-6264426, Fax: +972-2-6282819, E-mail: passia@passia.org , Website: www.passia.org , PO Box 19545, Jerusalem
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
TH E B R ITI S H M A N DATE
The British civil administration of mandatory Palestine began in
1920, with the appointment of Herbert Samuel as the first High
Commissioner of Palestine. The appointment of Samuel was
welcomed by the Zionists – as a Zionist Jew, Samuel was outspoken in his support for the Zionist colonization of Palestine,
having circulated a memorandum entitled “The Future of Palestine” to the British Cabinet in 1914 suggesting that Palestine
become a home for the Jewish people. However, his appointment to the post was not fully supported. Edmund Allenby, the
British General who occupied Damascus and Jerusalem during
WWI, understood that the Palestinians would not welcome a
Zionist policy which would slowly deprive them of their homeland, stating that the Arabs would see it “as handing the country
over at once to a permanent Zionist Administration.”3 A telegram from the newly formed Muslim-Christian Association to
Sir Louis Jean Bols, the Chief Administrator of Palestine under
the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration which preceded
the Mandate, underscored
this belief, stating that “Sir
Herbert Samuel [is] regarded as a Zionist leader,
and his appointment as first
step in [the] formation of
[a] Zionist national home
in the midst of Arab people
contrary to their wishes. Inhabitants cannot recognize
him, and Muslim-Christian
Society cannot accept responsibility for riots or othAllenby, Balfour and Samuel
er disturbances of peace.”4
By April 1920, Palestinian opposition to
the increasing Zionist colonization and
Jewish immigration supported by Samuel
and the British sparked the first Palestinian
uprising in Jerusalem, eventually spreading
throughout Palestine. The declining
economic and political situation for the
native Palestinians was made clear in
1929: Sir John Hope Simpson, leading
a commission of enquiry into issues John Hope Simpson
of immigration and land purchases,
noted that “there is no room for a single additional [Jewish]
settlement if the standard life of the Arab fellaheen is to remain
at its present level.”5
Despite this, by 1931 the population of Jewish immigrants in
Palestine had almost doubled against their 1922 numbers,
and the exclusionary Zionist ideology ensured that any
Jewish landholdings would only be leased or sold on to Jews.
This policy can be seen as the beginning of the attempted
‘Judaization’ of Palestine, which as a key tenet of the Zionist
ideology has resulted in the expulsion and cantonization of
Palestinians that we see today. During this time, violent unrest
continued to emerge as tensions between Jewish immigrants
and Palestinians increased – the 1929 Al-Buraq (Wailing Wall)
Wall Riots, a particularly violent episode, resulted in the death
of 133 Jews and 110 Palestinians with hundreds more injured.
Sicker, Martin, Pangs of the Messiah:The Troubled Birth of the Jewish State,
Connecticut: Greenwood, 2000, p.30.
4
Hunedi, Sahar, A Broken Trust: Sir Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the
Palestinians, London: I.B Tauris, 2001, p.47.
5
PASSIA, The Palestine Question in Maps 1878-2002, Jerusalem: PASSIA, p.12.
3
2
New Palestinian political parties began to emerge which called
for the independence of Palestine and boycotts of the British
Mandate authorities. More youth groups were also formed,
such as the Black Hand, which engaged in armed actions against
Zionist colonies and the British Mandate authorities.
Al-Buraq (Wailing Wall), 1929
Frustration of Palestinian ambitions for an independent
homeland, and growing fears of Jewish domination, eventually
led the Palestinians to engage in nationwide strikes and
demonstrations against the British authorities in 1933. The
British responded to these demonstrations with force, leaving
at least twelve Palestinians dead, and fuelling further animosity
against the British. In the years between 1933 and 1936 more
than 164,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, and
between 1931 and 1936 the Jewish population more than
doubled from 175,000 to 370,000 people, increasing the Jewish
population share from 17 to 27%. Now owning 1.5 million
dunums of Palestinian land, David Ben-Gurion, the Jewish
Agency Executive Chairman, called the settlers his “army of
Zionist fulfillment.” Zionist policies ensured that these 1.5
million dunums of Palestine were to be kept exclusively Jewish,
carving away large swathes of the Palestinians’ homeland.
Increasing Palestinian fears of ongoing immigration tipping
the scales towards Jewish dominance were exacerbated
in October of 1935 by the discovery in Jaffa of a large arms
shipment intended for the Haganah (a Jewish paramilitary gang),
leading Palestinians to fear that if the Zionists did not take over
Palestine through numbers, then they would do so by force.
American Support for Partition
Solutions to the new ‘Palestine problem’ came frequently as
interested parties – Arab, Jewish and international – sought
to either prevent violence, seek peace, or take advantage of
the unrest. Separating the conflicting parties through the creation of cantons or by partitioning the land became a common theme in these ‘solutions.’ The earliest notable mention
of such a plan was in 1929, with Wallace Murray, the head of
the US State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs,
writing to Paul Knabenshue, the US Consul General in Jerusalem, about an idea in the Department that the Jews might
be given an autonomous region around Tel Aviv. Although the
proposal was rejected due to it awarding the Jews the most
fertile lands in Palestine, which would further exacerbate Arab
grievances, it ushered in the idea of partition as a way to solve
the growing tensions in the region. Additionally, it marked the
beginning of US support for partition plans to support Zionist colonization, a policy which would be pursued persistently
by subsequent US administrations. The British High Commissioner, John Chancellor, noted that “at one time he had flirted
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
with this idea [of cantonization] and had soon rejected it as
impracticable.”6 Zionist leaders also sought to capitalize on
the unrest by proposing partitions which would consolidate
Zionist gains on the land.
tion transfer’ to ensure the homogeneity of the new states. On
5 July 1937, the British cabinet, led by Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain, endorsed the report and the idea of partition,
thus lending the latter the prestige and support of the British government. Subsequently, it became the key principle for
“managing” the conflict in the region.
Peel Commision Partition Plan, 1937
Acre
Haifa
Nazareth
Mediterranean
Sea
Jenin
British troops searching Palestinians at Damascus Gate, 1936
Nablus
Tel Aviv
1937: PE E L CO M M I S S I O N
Ramallah
The result of the so-called “Peel Commission” was to recommend to the British Government a policy of partition; in their
report the commissioners
posited that “if Palestine
ought to be divided, it can
be divided.”7 According to
the Peel Commission’s report, nearly 33% of Palestine would be converted
into a Jewish state, with an
enclave including the two
holy cities of Jerusalem
and Bethlehem and a wide
band of territory from Jerusalem and Jaffa remaining under British control.
Lord Peel arriving in Jerusalem
The new Arab state was
to be united with Transjordan and paid a subsidy by the Jewish state. Additionally,
those Jewish and Arab populations left outside of their new
national territories would be compelled to move in a ‘populaSinanoglou, Penny, “British Plans for the Partition of Palestine, 19291938,” The Historical Journal, vol. 52 (February 2009) pp. 131-152.
7
Klieman, Aaron, “The Resolution of Conflicts through Territorial
Partition: The Palestine Experience,” Comparative Studies in Society and
History,Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1980), pp. 281-300.
6
PASSIA
Jerusalem
Jericho
Gaza
Hebron
D ea d S ea
Bethlehem
Khan Yunis
Beersheba
Negev
EGYPT
TRANS-JORDAN
In April of 1936 a series of Arab-Jewish clashes in Jaffa resulted
in a nationwide strike by the Palestinians, later being led by the
Arab Higher Committee (AHC). Despite a ban of the AHC by
Mandate authorities and the imposition of a curfew, the Arab
Revolt swept throughout Palestine. The British responded
harshly by enacting ‘statutory’ martial law, resulting in at least
5,000 Arab deaths and over 15,000 injured, alongside 300
Jewish and 262 British deaths. By October, Arab leaders had
mediated an agreement which allowed the British to dispatch
a commission, headed by Lord William Peel, the former British
Secretary of State for India, to investigate the causes for the
violence and assess the future of the Mandate in Palestine.
Proposed Jewish State
Proposed Arab State
Area to remain under
British Mandate
The partition plan, however, was not accepted by the
Palestinians who viewed the appropriation of their land by
a Jewish immigrant minority as fundamentally unjust as it
denied their right to self-determination and their historical
attachment to the land. While the Zionist leadership accepted
the proposal ‘in principle’ but not ‘in detail’, Ze’ev Jabotintsky’s
3
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
Revisionist movement rejected it outright, as it sought a full
Jewish majority and a Jewish nation-state in Palestine.8 By
September 1937, the Zionist immigrants had begun a campaign
of violence against the British authorities and the Palestinian
people. In response, the Arab Revolt began again in earnest.
Woodhead Commission, Partition Plan C, 1938
Acre
1938 : WOO D H E A D CO M M I S S I O N
Haifa
Nazareth
As violence continued, subsequent attempts to “manage” the
conflict through partition were made between 1937 and 1947.
The 1938 Woodhead Commission, headed by Sir John Ackroyd
Woodhead, was tasked by the British government to look
for the solution to the ongoing conflict between Arabs and
Jews, with instruction to draw up a more detailed scheme for
partition based on the Peel Commission’s recommendations.
The new Commission operated against the background of
bombing attacks against Arabs by the Zionist Irgun gang, as
well as increasing armed operations by the Haganah militia
forces. The Commission found the principle of partition and
transfer unworkable: there existed only a small territory where
Jews consisted of a majority, which would still contain around
54,400 Arabs. While the Commission submitted three plans
for partition to the government, it noted that the “absence of
equality… absence of security… [and] absence of consent”9
meant that the plans would be impossible to implement and
reprehensible. The Commisson advocated the Majority Plan
(Plan C), which consisted of a Jewish state of 1,258 km2 divided
in two parts, extending from Tel Aviv to above Zichron Ya’acov,
with a smaller southern section near Rehovot, and containing
226,000 Jews and 54,400 Arabs in total. The Palestinian state
would be 7,393 km2, expanding from what is today known as
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and including the city of Jaffa,
with a population of 8,900 Jews and 441,100 Arabs. Finally, the
British would remain in control of all the Galilee, an enclave
including Jerusalem and Lydda, and the Negev.
Mediterranean
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
(ARAB STATE)
Ramallah
Jobotinsky,Vladimir, “Evidence Submitted to the Palestine Royal (“Peel”)
Commission, 11 Febuary 1937,” in Mahdi Abdul Hadi (ed.), Documents on
Palestine Vol I: 1900-1947, Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2007, pp. 329-330.
9
PASSIA, The Palestine Question in Maps, op. cit., p.16.
4
Jericho
Jerusalem
Hebron
Gaza
Dead Se
a
Bethlehem
SOUTHERN
MANDATED
TERRITORY
Sinai
TRANS -J ORDAN
Beersheba
Following the report of the Woodhead Commission, the British
government rejected partition as a solution to the ongoing
conflict between Palestinians and Zionists. Additionally,
coinciding with the report, the government announced that
it wished to end the Mandate, and sought a Palestinian-Jewish
agreement in order to do so. As such, it invited each side to
a conference – the St. James Conference of 1939 – to discuss
what form a government of Palestine would take upon the
withdrawal of the British. In the event of no agreement, the
British would unilaterally implement a policy of its own design.
8
Jenin
Sea
1939: MACDONALD WHITE PAPER
The Palestinian delegation to the conference refused to
meet with the Zionists, citing that doing so would confer
legitimacy upon their position. As such, each side met with the
British delegation separately and put forward its terms; the
Palestinians called for independence, an end to immigration and
the withdrawal of the Balfour Declaration; the Zionists wanted
continued immigration and the non-confinement of Jews to a
minority.The conference ended without an agreement and the
British issued the ‘MacDonald’ White Paper on 23 May 1939,
called so due to its drafting by Malcolm MacDonald, the British
NORTHERN
MANDATED
TERRITORY
Proposed Jewish State
Proposed Arab State
Area to remain under
British Mandate
Secretary of State for the Colonies. The White Paper was to
create an independent Palestine governed by Palestinian Arabs
and Jews in proportion to their population, while limiting
Jewish immigration to 100,000 over five years. After this,
further immigration would be permitted only when agreed to
by the Palestinians. Additionally, and notably, the White Paper
also divided Palestine into three zones: A, B and C. In Zone A,
corresponding to about 63% of Palestine, land transfers were
forbidden except between Palestinians. In Zone B – about
32% of the country – transfers to non-Palestinians were at
the discretion of the High Commissioner. In the final 5% of
Palestine land transfers were unrestricted. However, land in
this 5% was the most fertile of the country.10
10
US Department of State, Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry - Appendix
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
further Jewish immigration into Palestine against the position
of the Palestinians. In July 1946, British Deputy Prime Minister
Herbert Morrison and US diplomat Henry Grady, in response
to what they (correctly) perceived as an impending disaster,
submitted a revised plan which divided Palestine into Jewish
and Arab provinces, similar in design to that of the Peel
Commission, except for introducing the option of a future
bi-national state. Although the Morrision-Grady federal plan
was rejected by the US and the Zionist organizations, British
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin proposed a variant of it at the
1947 London Roundtable Conference.
Palestinian-Arab (above) and Zionist-Jewish (below) delegations
at the St. James Conference of 1939
1947: U N PA RTITI O N PL A N R E S O LUTI O N 181
By early 1947, violence, civil unrest, the economic and physical
damages of WWII and the failure of prior British attempts at
solving the conflict led the British Government to transfer
the problem of Palestine to the UN. At the time, two thirds
of the Jewish population consisted of immigrants, making up
around 32% of the total population of Palestine (with 29%
being concentrated in Tel Aviv), while Jewish landholdings was
limited to only 6.6% of the land.
Reactions to the White Paper were wholly negative on both
sides: the AHC argued that the White Paper stopped short
of independence, with the British holding on to authority.
This additionally meant that immigration controls outlined
in the White Paper would be subject to British decisions and
as such there existed no guarantee of a halt to immigration.
Zionist groups immediately rejected the Paper and began a
coordinated bombing campaign against Palestinian civilians and
British government property.
194 5: A N G LO - A M E R I C A N
CO M M I S S I O N O F E N QU I RY
Following World War Two (WWII), the problem of Jewish
refugees again brought the question of Jewish immigration
into Palestine to the forefront of the debate. The British
Labour Party conference voted to rescind the White Paper
and establish a Jewish state in Palestine, reflecting the fact that
Britain was keen to absorb as few of the refugees as possible.
In November of 1945, an Anglo-American commission of
enquiry was created to examine the status of Europe’s
Jews. It recommended the issuing of 100,000 immigration
certificates to Jewish refugees, a lifting of all restrictions on
land transfer, and a UN trusteeship – effectively supporting
One of the answers of the United Nations to the problem
of Palestine was the issuing of General Assembly Resolution
181 calling for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an
Arab state, with Jerusalem falling under an international Corpus Separatum administration. The partition resolution, proposed by the Ad-Hoc Committee, ignored the proposal of a
one-state solution submitted by the Palestinian AHC, which instead would grant the Zionist movement a “state” on 56.47%
of Palestine, and the Palestinian people one on 42.88%, with
Jerusalem becoming an international zone of the land (0.65%
of Palestine). The Zionist state would end up having a population of around 900,000 Jews and 407,000 Palestinian Arabs, and the Arab state of 725,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews.
The Jerusalem district would contain some 100,000 Jews and
105,000 Arabs. Despite the injustice of allotting the majority of
Palestine to a minority group of immigrants, the UN disregarded
the proposal and passed Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947.
The vote for Resolution 181 in the General Assembly was
rigorously supported by the US, which viewed the creation of a
state of “Israel” as a way to prevent mass immigration of Jewish
refugees to the US. As such, dissenting states were pressured
by the threat of a withdrawal of US aid, which in the post-war
environment was crucial. A telegram signed by 26 senators
with influence on US aid policy was sent to those countries,
which largely reversed their opposition as a result.11 All of the
Arab states voted against the plan, rejecting it in its entirety.12
Addressing the Ad-Hoc Committee before the vote, the AHC
noted that the “claims of the Zionists had no legal or moral basis”
in demanding lands they had lived in 2,000 years ago, and that
“The Arabs of Palestine could not understand why their right
to live in freedom… should be questioned and constantly
submitted to investigation.”13 Their opposition was based on
Bennis, Phyllis, Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11
Crisis, New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003, p. 33.
12
UN, United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, July 1949, http://
unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4ECBF3578B6149C50525657100507FAB.
13
Bey Husseini, Jamal, “Arab Higher Committee Member Jamal Bey
Husseini, Statement Before the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestine
Question on Arab Reactions to the UNSCOP Proposals, 29 September
1947,” in Mahdi Abdul Hadi (ed.), Documents on Palestine Vol I: 1900-1947,
Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2007, pp. 498-499.
11
Chaim Weizmann (l) & Jamal Al-Husseini (r)
at the Anglo-American Committee, 1945
IV, April 20, 1946, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angap04.asp.
PASSIA
5
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
the principle that the Zionist appropriation of land was invalid
in the face of the Palestinian ownership of the land and right
to self-determination in their homeland. The British abstained
from the vote, noting they would not support a solution
without consent of both parties, and setting a timetable for
their withdrawal from Palestine.
Jerusalem and the Corpus Separatum proposed in 1947
Hizma
Beit
Hanina
G
West Jerusalem
municipal section
conquered by
ee
Israel -1948
nL
ine
r
Anata
Shu'fat
Lifta
United Nations Partition Plan - UN Resolution 181
Deir
Yassin
Old
City
Sheikh
Badr
AlIzzariyya
Abu
Silwan
Dis
Ein
Karim
Malha
Beit
Safafa
Acre
Haifa
Battir
Beit
Jala
Nazareth
Mount
Scopus
Enclave
East Jerusalem
municipal section
remaining under
Arab rule -1949
Sur
Baher
Corpus Separatum
Outline
Bethlehem
Beit
Sahur
Jenin
Mediterranean
Sea
0
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Ramallah
Jericho
Jerusalem
Gaza
Hebron
Khan Yunis
Dead Sea
Bethlehem
Beersheba
5 km
actions following its passing iunderscored their plans to use
their military might in order to establish an exclusive “Jewish
state” over all of Palestine. Indeed, they carried out a series
of ethnic cleansing operations during the 1948 War, such as
Operation Danny, which saw the civilian populations of Lydda
and Ramle expelled to the Arab front lines. These villages, and
over 400 like them, were then systematically destroyed and
renamed to erase any sign of Palestinian occupation (Lydda
and Ramle became Lod and Ramla) and impose a new Israeli
identity. The purpose and result of this was to erase the history
of the Palestinians on the land, and therefore consolidate Israeli
control of these areas. (Such policies are still observable today
in Jerusalem, where Palestinians are being evicted from their
homes and streets and areas renamed with Jewish names).
Negev
Palestinian exodus, 1948
Proposed Jewish State
Proposed Arab State
Internationally administered
'Corpus Separatum'
of Jerusalem
The essence of Resolution 181 ignored the demographic, territorial and historical reality of Palestine, in which Palestinians
maintained a majority, both numerically and in land ownership.
The Zionist colonizers welcomed the UNGA resolution,
with the Jewish Agency officially accepting it.14 However, their
UN, The Plan of Partition and the End of the British Mandate, Undated,
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/palestine/ch2.pdf.
By the time the British left Palestine on 14 May 1948, 380,000
Palestinians had been forced from their homes by armed
groups, violent unrest was raging, and Zionist forces had
moved
beyond
the partition line
to secure military
control of 70%
of Palestine, a
13.53% gain over
that which was
allotted to them
in the Partition
Plan.15
First days of Dheisheh refugee camp, 1948
14
6
15
PASSIA, The Palestine Question in Maps 1878-2002, Jerusalem: PASSIA, p. 24.
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
1949 : R H O D E S A R M I S TI C E L I N E
Landownership in Palestine at the Time
of the UN Partition Plan, 1947
Following the “Declaration of Independence” of the State
of Israel by David Ben-Gurion on 14 May 1948, the Arab
states mobilized and moved to protect the Palestinians.
However, they were very much divided on the issue of
Palestine, pursuing different agendas; Jordan sought to annex
the West Bank, while Egypt pursued the annexation of
southern Palestine. The war would prove disastrous for the
Palestinians and the Arab states; by its end in 1949, Israel
had expanded its territorial holdings to 78% of mandatory
Palestine,16 and Palestinians had suffered wide displacement,
lost their homes and large amounts of cultivated land – in
what became known the Nakba (“catastrophe”).
Jewish-owned land,1947
Jewish State according to
UN Partition Plan,1947
Arab State according to
UN Partition Plan,1947
Haifa
Nazareth
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Jerusalem
Gaza
Hebron
Bir Saba
30 km
© Jan de Jong
Palestinian Villages Depopulated and Razed by Israel
Jewish-owned land,1947
Jaffa
State of Israel according to
the 1949 Armistice Agreement
Ramallah
Jericho
Palestinian villages depopulated
in 1948 and 1967 and razed by
Israel
Jerusalem
Bethlehem
West Bank and Gaza Strip
Gaza
Haifa
Nazareth
Hebron
Khan Yunis
Beersheba
Nablus
Negev
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Jerusalem
Proposed Jewish State
Arab territory
Gaza
Territories seized by Israel
beyond the area for the
proposed Jewish State
Hebron
D ea d Se a
0
The new partition along the 1949 Armistice Line gave what
was left of Palestine outside of Israeli control to Jordan and
Egypt – the West Bank and Gaza respectively. This new reality divided Palestinians
not only territorially –
Rhodes Armistice Line, 1949
there remained no access route between Gaza
and the West Bank – but
also administratively, as
they were either given
the status of refugee
Acre
in the new United NaHaifa
tions Relief and Works
Nazareth
Agency for Palestinian
Refugees in the Middle
East (UNRWA) refugee
camps, or absorbed into
Jenin
Mediterranean
the Jordanian and EgypSea
tian administrations. By
Nablus
1950, UNRWA had regTel Aviv
istered 914,221 refugees.
The difference in territory between the 1947
Partition Plan and the
1949 Armistice was vast
and its political effects
wide-reaching. The 1948
War was an unbridled
success for the Israelis,
who were able to use
their military superiority to achieve their plans
of largely cleansing the
state of “Israel” of nonJewish inhabitants and
identity, while expanding its border lines. The
territories gained by
Israel during the 1948
War were absorbed into
the Israeli-Jewish national consciousness as
inseparable portions of
the state itself, not to be
bargained away.
Bir Saba
0
30 km
© Jan de Jong
16
PASSIA
Ibid.
7
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
1956 - 57: OCC U PY I N G GA Z A
Jerusalem After 1948
The historically and religiously significant city of Jerusalem also
suffered division as a result of the war, during which Zionist
forces ordered the expulsion of 80,000 Palestinians from Israeli
controlled West Jerusalem resulting in a loss of 8,907 dunums
of Palestinian property.17 The battle for Jerusalem between
the Zionists and the Palestinian and Arab forces reached a
stalemate when the Zionists failed to break through Arab lines
into Jerusalem’s Old City, with the final lines of control cleaving
Jerusalem into eastern and western sides and leaving 85% of
the city under Zionist control.
Following the Armistice between the Arab League and the
Zionist forces, the de facto military partition of the city was
formalized with the drawing of the ‘Green Line’, named after
the green-color pen used to mark the division on the map,
which left some 125 homes stranded in a no-man’s land 6080 meter in width, which ran from north to south through
the city. In the areas it controlled, Israel began settling new
immigrants, occupying Palestinian homes and violating
international laws.
During the occupation of Gaza over 400 Palestinians were
killed, supply lines were cut, curfews were imposed, UNRWA
services were disrupted, and food supplies were looted.
Partitioned Jerusalem, 1948-1967
ISRAEL
DEMILITARIZED
ZONE
Sanhedria
Hadassah Hospital
M
t
Sc
op
us
Hebrew
University
Mandelbaum Gate
Ash-Sharif
I
OLD
CITY
Jer ic
ho R
oad
Despite bowing to US pressure, later actions made it clear that
Israel still sought to assert its control over the Strip as part of
its Zionist drive to claim the entirety of Palestine.
S
1967: TH E J U N E WA R & A F TE R
A
Jewish
Quarter
Armenian
Quarter
Zion Gate
However, as the aggressive attack on Egypt ushered in a
diplomatic crisis, with the US strongly condemning it, Israel’s
seizing of the Gaza Strip only lasted until March 1957, when
it had to give it up at the behest of the US, which threw its
weight behind UNSC Resolutions 997 and 1001, calling for
withdrawal and establishing the UN Emergency Force to
provide a buffer between Israel and Egypt.
D
Mosque
of Omar
D
Augusta
Victoria
Church
s
Qua
r
M
usli
m
Lion's Gate
Al-Haram
R
Christian
Quarter
New Hebrew
University
N
LA
ZONE
Jaffa Gate
Rehavia
N 'S
JORDAN
DEMILITARIZED
O
Mea
Shearim
MA
ve
Roa
d
ter
J e r u s a l e m
Talbiyeh
Mt.Zion
R
A
Ath-Thori
E
L
Government House
(UN Headquarters)
NO MAN'S LAND
Talpiot
Mile
1
Silwan
N
Road
G aza
0
NO
Mt o
f O
li
Jaff
a
J
NO
MAN'S
LAND
The 1956 ‘Suez Crisis’ marked the changing geopolitical
situation in the Middle East; the rise of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel
Nasser in 1953 and his Pan-Arabist stance towards the
former colonial powers caused Europe to fear about their
colonial holdings. Nasser’s nationalizing of the Suez Canal in
1956 galvanized those fears, and Britain and France colluded
with Israel to intervene and regain control. This offered the
opportunity to satisfy the strong expansionist current that ran
through Israeli society and leadership; both Moshe Dayan and
David Ben-Gurion – then Chief of Staff and Prime Minister –
strongly believed that the territory occupied after the 1948
War fell short of the Zionist vision of ‘Eretz Israel.’18 On 29
October 1956, Israel thus launched a surprise attack across
the Sinai, and by 7 November had gained control of the Sinai
and Gaza Strip, while Britain and France held the Suez Canal.
Ben-Gurion immediately declared that Israel intended to
absorb both territories and incorporate them permanently
into Israel, telling the Knesset, that the 1949 armistice lines
were dead and buried and could never be restored.
Political and security tensions continued to escalate following
the 1956 Suez War. Border skirmishes were common, and the
patrons of both Israel and the Arab states - the US and USSR
respectively – were warning their allies of their vulnerability
against the other. Concerns were exacerbated when Israeli
Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin threatened the conquering of
Damascus. Egypt’s Nasser responded to Israeli threats against
his allies by deploying troops in the Sinai and closing the
Straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and on 30 May 1967,
Jordan and Egypt signed a mutual defense pact. The Israeli
military pressed for a preemptive aggressive attack and by 4
June the government had made the decision to go to war.
Israel’s aggressive surprise attack on 5 June 1967 was devastating
to the Arab forces, and the six-day war ended with Israel
defeating the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies and gaining
control of over 90,000 km2 of territory, including the Gaza
Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai and the West Bank, which
the Israelis had long coveted for both the fulfillment of the
Zionist vision and for its resources. During the war, Israel again
employed the strategy of destroying and erasing Palestinian
Morris, Benny, Israel’s Border Wars 1949-1956, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995, pp. 410-411.
18
17
8
Ibid., p.110.
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
villages, creating another 300,000 refugees and keeping some
1.3 million Palestinians under military occupation in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, while clearing space for settlements.
Again, after the war the UN called upon Israel to respect the
right of return for refugees, but to no avail.
Palestine after the June 1967 War
Beirut
The tragedy of the 1967 War is that it became the new
international consensus that Israel, in order to fulfill its
obligations, only needs to withdraw from territories occupied
in 1967 – both ignoring the reality of its colonization and
occupation of the entirety of Palestine, and sidelining support
for a one-state solution. The annexation of East Jerusalem,
while not internationally recognized, has proved a sticking
point in negotiations; successive Israeli governments have
refused to negotiate the status of Jerusalem and to recognize
legitimate Palestinian claims to it.
Damascus
Territories conquered
and occupied by Israel
as of 10 June 1967
Jerusalem After 1967
Haifa
Villages depopulated
and razed by Israel:
Beit Nuba, Emwas and Yallo
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Amman
Jerusalem
Gaza
Port Said
Kerak
El-Arish
Ismailya
Ma'an
Since 1947, Jerusalem has been an unresolved key issue in
negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians due to its status
as holy city to both sides. Jerusalem was fully occupied and
annexed by Israel in 1967, a move which has been almost
universally condemend by the international community as
illegal under international law. Regardless, Israel has been
steadfast in its occupation, passing a Basic Law in 1980 stating
that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel,”
and taking nuermours steps to solidify its occupation by
marginalizing and expelling Palestinians within the city while
expanding settlements and increasing the Jewish population.
This ‘Judaization’ policy has seen Palestinians being evicted from
their homes to make way for Jewish settlers, with messainic
groups forging documents and utilizing the illegal occupation in
an attempt to preclude any Palestinian rights in the city.
Suez
Eilat
The Allon Plan, 1967
Aqaba
The vast territorial gains made by the Israelis during the war
precluded any effective plan about what to do with them.
The West Bank and Gaza were treated as ‘liberated’ parts of
Israel, and as such were to be annexed to the Israeli state.
However, the Palestinian demographic development meant
that complete annexation would not work lest it upset Israel’s
‘Jewishness.’ Israel was faced with the contradiction of wanting
to retain and annex as much of the territory as it could, but
without the native Palestinian population.
Sharm
Esh-Sheikh
Map: PASSIA, 2002
Additionally, it passed UNSC
Resolution 242 of 22 November
1967 calling for Israel to withdraw
from the territories captured
during the war in exchange
for peace with its neighbors;.
This idea of ‘land for peace’ has
since prevailed as a new notion
of partition, and has formed the
basis for future negotiations over
the status of Palestine. Again,
Palestinians were not consulted
in this further legitimation of the
unfair partition of their lands by
the international community.
PASSIA
UN Security Council
voting for Resolution 242, 1967
While Israel was outright in its annexation of Arab East
Jerusalem, expropriating hundreds of acres of Palestinian
property, Gaza and the West Bank faced a more nuanced
scheme of settlement, cantonization and repression in order
to shift the demographic weight in Israel’s favor and allow later
annexation.
An early attempt to contain the Palestinians within the Occupied
Territories by cantonizing and surrounding them with civilian,
military and paramilitary settlements was the Allon Plan. For
Israel, the aim was to provide a buffer zone against Jordan, and
create ‘facts on the ground’ in order to legitimate its presence.
The residents of Gaza, while they could not be expelled in a
mass transfer under the eyes of the international community,
were subjected to a harsh military rule in order to encourage
them to evacuate. Settlements served to further squeeze the
Palestinian population into ever smaller spaces, resulting in a
double partition: the fragmentation of the land into the West
Bank, Gaza and Israel, as well as internal fragmentation of the
West Bank and Gaza into Palestinian and settler zones.
9
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
The Allon Plan, 1967
Acre
Haifa
Nazareth
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Territorial corridor
- link with Jordan
Jordan Valley
settlements
Jenin
Ramallah
Jericho
Jerusalem
Bethlehem
Gaza
Hebron
Khan Younis
Beersheba
The 1973 October (Yom Kippur) War between Israel and an
Arab coalition under Egyptian and Syrian leadership led to an
acceleration of Israel’s colonization of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, despite the US-mediated 1978 Camp David Accords/1979
Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty. The agreement, which demanded
that Israel fully withdraws from the Sinai (already home to
some 5,000 settlers), recognizes the “legitimate rights of the
Palestinian people,” and withdraws its troops from the OPT
after the election of a Palestinian self-governing authority,
was never implemented. In fact, the evacuation of the Sinai
settlements resulted in an increased drive to expand on the
West Bank and Gaza, and between 1977 and 1981 the number
of settlements and settlers more than quadrupled. The
agreement stopped short of true Palestinian independence,
and as such the PLO saw it merely as a political maneuver by
Israel to legitimize its occupation.
Successive plans by Israeli governments to consolidate their
control of the occupied land through settlement activity
began in earnest in 1976 with the Wachmann Plan under
Prime Minister Rabin. The plan sought to maximize Jewish
demography and territory by settling 2.5 million Jewish Israelis
in the sparsely populated areas of the OPT while encircling the
Palestinians. This plan, however, failed to receive widespread
support as it did not go far enough for messianic settler groups
and nationalists who sought the colonization and annexation
of the whole of Palestine.
The Wachman Plan, 1976
SYRIA
Territories occupied
by Israel, 1967-1982
Katzrin
Immediate priority
settlement zone
Haifa
Tiberias
Second priority
settlement zone
Beit She'an
Third priority
settlement zone
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Key settlement
Jerusalem
Israel - prior to 1967
Jericho
Gaza
Territories for settlement
according to plan
Port Said
Yammit
West Bank areas to be
left unsettled in plan
El-Arish
Mitzpe
Ramon
Map: PASSIA, 2002
Suez
UN Buffer
&
Demilitarized Zone
1970-80 S : SETTLEMENT EXPANSION
By 1973, Israeli attitudes towards the settlements occupying
the West Bank had hardened; prior to the Israeli elections in
October, the Labor Party decided to support demands for
the building of a ‘settlement’ near Rafah, additional colonies
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and continued
purchases of Arab land by the Jewish Development Agency.
The government’s adoption of the new hard-line Galili
document also underlined this attitude: it planned closer
integration of the newly occupied territories through
developing the infrastructure, economies and social services
of the colonies. With settlers in Palestine living under Israeli
law and Palestinians under military law, the occupation created
a ‘dual system of government’, effectively a system of stateadministered apartheid.
10
JORDAN
Taba
Eilat
EGYPT
Sharm
Esh-Sheikh
In 1977, a new Likud-led Israeli government actively pursued
the policy of achieving Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlem, or a ‘Greater
Israel,’ which encompassed the entirety of the land of Palestine,
swallowing some 13% of West Bank and 33% of Gaza land.
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
The following Gush-Drobles Plan of 1978 sought to expand
on all existing settlements, creating 57 new ones on key
communication, transport and water routes, while bringing
together all existing settlements in order to surround
and isolate Palestinian communities, turning them into
enclaves, with the intention of precluding the establishment
of a Palestinian state. This “messianic” plan did not receive
widespread subscription and thus failed to provide for the
financial needs of ongoing colonial settler activity. Following
plans sought to address this by attracting the general public
through large scale funding and development of settler sites.
The Gush-Drobles Plan, 1978
The Sharon Plan, 1978
Settlement zone
Palestinian canton
Mediterranean
Rural settlement
Sea
Urban 'anchor'
settlement
Jenin
Tulkarem
Nablus
Qalqilya
Tel Aviv
Planned settlement
bloc
Jenin
outpost
M e dExisting
iterran
e a n or
settlement
Sea
Planned settlement
Ramallah
Jericho
Tulkarem
Nablus
Jerusalem
Qalqilya
Bethlehem
De ad Se a
Tel Aviv
Hebron
Ramallah
Jericho
Jerusalem
Hebron
De ad Se a
Bethlehem
By doing so as well as by investing in new economic projects
within the OPT, Israel hoped to make ceding the land politically
untenable as Israelis who relocated to settlements for nonideological reasons would feel that disengagement would result
in the loss of both their homes and livelihoods.
The ‘Seven Stars’, 1991
The Sharon Plan of 1981 did just this; within two years of its inception, the settler population had nearly doubled from 16,000
due to an influx of funding totaling $1.5 billion spent on the creation of subsidized ‘quality of life’ settlements, taking advantage
of the growing demand for cheap, urban housing. As a result,
settlements, access roads and military camps consumed 41.6%
of all of the West Bank and 32% of the Gaza Strip, with Palestinians being forced off the land and into cantons. By March 1991,
settler numbers had risen to 185,000. In May of the same year,
the Knesset passed a new ‘Seven Stars’ Plan, which sought to
finally erase the political significance of the Green Line by settling on or beyond it, and impeding future growth in areas with
high Palestinian population in preparation for their annexation.
Likud-leader Menachem Begin knew that directly annexing
the land with the Palestinian population intact would alter
the demographics of Israel, turning the state into a bi-national
instead of a Jewish one. Hence, successive plans sought to
not only further displace the Palestinians, but also to increase
psychological and economic attachment of Israelis to the land
through a network of settlements, infrastructure and bypass
roads, which cut directly through Palestinian land, dislocating
farmers from their fields and cutting communities in half.19
Harish
Settlement bloc
Settlement zone
Mediterranean
Palestinian
canton
Sea
'Rural' settlement
Jenin
Tulkarem
Urban settlement
'Star' settlement
Nablus
Settlement Rt.
Qalqilya
Tel Aviv
h
Ramallah
Modi'in
Jericho
Rt. 6
Jerusalem
Bethlehem
Hebron
De ad Se a
Map: PASSIA, 2002
19
Highway 6, for example, severed 5,000 dunums from the village of Taibeh,
50% of its total. See Adiv, Assaf, Schwartz, Michal, Sharon’s Star Wars: Israel’s
Seven Stars Settlement Plan, Jerusalem: Hanitzotz A-Sharara Publishing House
(1992), p.25.
PASSIA
11
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
The First Intifada, 1987
Growing Palestinian unrest against the occupation peaked
when on 8 December 1987 an Israeli military truck collided
with cars at Erez checkpoint, killing four Palestinians and injuring
seven others. Their funerals quickly escalated into widespread
demonstrations throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
and clashes with the Israeli army using excessive force went
along with wide-scale civil disobedience. Palestinians boycotted Israeli jobs, and products and took control of neighborhoods and refugee camps by barricading themselves and beating back Israeli soldiers with petrol bombs and rocks. During
the six-year uprising, over 1,000 Palestinians were killed and
more than 120,000 arrested.20 Israel also engaged in collective
punishments, closing down universities and schools, imposing curfews, cutting off supplies of water, electricity and fuel,
and demolishing or sealing hundreds of Palestinians homes.
However, the Intifada also empowered the Palestinian leadership,
bringing its cause to the forefront of international media focus
and shattering world opinion of Israel. This, together with the
grassroots support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict
strengthened those elements within the PLO who called for a
state alongside Israel (as opposed to the previous demand to
liberate all of historic Palestine). Accordingly, the 19th PNC in
November 1988 was able to adopt a resolution accepting the
two-state solution based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and
renouncing the use of terrorism.
The Madrid Conference, 1991
The resultant opening of dialogue by the US with the PLO
eventually led to the 1991 Madrid Conference, which saw the
first formal peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.These
negotiations intended to result in an agreement on interim
Principal Israeli settlement
Major city
Jenin
Tulkarem
Netanya
20 km
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Mediterranean Sea
Ramallah
NO MAN's LAND
1949-1967
Jericho
Hebron
Dead Sea
Jerusalem
Gaza
fah
Map: adapted from Map NO. 3639 United Nations, June 1991
Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, “The Intifada Erupts, Forcing
Israel to Recognize Palestinians,” December 1997, http://www.wrmea.org/
wrmea-archives/190-washington-report-archives-1994-1999/december1997/2780-middle-east-history-it-happened-in-december-.html.
20
12
199 0 s : TH E O S LO PRO C E S S
The Declaration of Principles and Oslo I, 1993-94
The absence of progress in the Washington rounds of negotiations set by the 1991 Madrid Conference, and the ongoing
Palestinian Intifada, led to the opening of the secret negotiations at Oslo in January 1993 between Israeli academics and
PLO representatives. The resulting breakthrough, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP) signed on 13 September 1993, entailed mutual
recognition between the PLO and Israel (which notably did
not amount to recognition of Palestinian statehood). Subsequent talks led to the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement – or
Oslo I – which provided for the creation of a new Palestinian body that initially gained administrative governance (not
government) of the Gaza Strip and Jericho, with the final issues
(borders, Jerusalem, refugees, etc.) being subject to further
negotiations to be concluded after no more than five years.
The Oslo II Agreement, 1995
Israeli Settlements, 1992
0
self-government, to be followed by final status negotiations.
As a precondition for talks, Israel successfully demanded that
UNGA Resolution 3379 (determining that “Zionism is a form
of racism”) be revoked and that Palestinians be only represented as part of the Jordanian delegation. The basis of the
talks – Resolution 242’s ‘land for peace’ formula and recognition of Israel – meant to give up claims to 78% of historic Palestine. Despite this historic concession of establishing a state
on only the remaining 22%, the Israeli government continued
its aggressive campaign of expanding settlements as illustrated by the the government’s New Master Plan No. 31 which
sought to add some140,000 settlers over the next five years.
Talks continued and, on 28 September 1995, Israel and the PLO
signed a second agreement, known as Oslo II, or the ‘interim
agreement.’ It formalized the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the
governing body of the Palestinian people, and split the West
Bank into three new zones – Area A, B and C. In Area A, the
PA gained control of civil and internal security affairs, with Israel retaining full control of ‘external’, or Israeli, security affairs.
Area A was contained to Jericho and six other Palestinian cities
within the West Bank totaling only 2%. In Area B, limited to 420
Palestinian villages – 20% of the West Bank – the PA became
responsible for civil affairs, with Israel controlling internal as
well as external security. In Area C, making up 72% of the West
Bank, Israel retained full control. The status of Jerusalem remained unchanged. Further withdrawals – or ‘redeployments’
– of Israeli forces were to take place in three six-month installments over the period of 18 months. The vast Israeli sphere
of control was justified by the ‘security needs’ of settlements
spread over vast areas of the West Bank, despite a commitment
made with Oslo I that “Neither side shall initiate or take any
step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip pending the outcome of the Permanent Status negotiations.” Regardless of this, in the period between the two Oslo
agreements, Israel did everything to secure its positions in the
West Bank, confiscating some 166,534 dunums of Palestinian
land between 1993 and 1996. Accordingly, all maps presented
to the Palestinian delegation for the Oslo II negotiations were
drafted to accommodate settlement growth, resulting in the
unjustly small amount of territory allotted to Area A (Palestinian control) by the Oslo II Agreement.
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
Interim (Oslo II) Agreement, 1995
The Gaza-Jericho (Oslo I) Agreement, 1994
Planned safe passage routes
0
Nablus
WEST
BANK
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Jenin
"Yellow areas": Israel responsible
for security; PA responsible for civil
affairs except in settlements
Jericho
Jerusalem
Gaza
20 km
Israeli settlements
Military installation area
Palestinian Autonomous Area
Hebron
Tulkarem
Towns
Security perimeter
Beersheba
Nablus
Map: M. Davies, 2001
Naaran
Qalqilya
Al-Auja
Yeirav
90
Zori
-
Naama
Ramallah
Elisha
Jericho
Jericho
Alon
Kfar Adumim
Jerusalem
Vered
Jericho
Mitzpe
Jericho
Annexed East
Jerusalem
Mishor
Adumim
90
Bethlehem
Bet
HaArava
Almog
Map: M. Davies, 2001
Ma'ale Adumim
Hebron
Elei Sinai
Crossing
Erez
Crossing
Gaza
City
Nahal Oz Crossing
Netzarim
Karni Crossing
Area A - Palestinian limited
autonomy
Area B - Palestinian civil
responsibility
Area C - Israeli exclusive rule
Kfar
Darom
Map: PASSIA, 1996
Kissufim
Crossing
Katif
Bloc
Khan
Younis
Rafah
International
Passage
Rafah
Terminal
Sufa
Crossing
0
Kerem Shalom
Crossing
PASSIA
1
2
3
4 km
Map: M. Davies, 2001
13
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
Effectively, the outcome of Oslo I and Oslo II was that Israel
gained ‘legitimacy’ for its occupation and security control
of most of the West Bank, while the Palestinians were given
only limited control of a meager fraction of their land. Out
of the 1,000 military orders controlling Gaza, only 70 were
revoked and all existing Israeli settlements were retained and
continued to paralyze Palestinian movement and development.
The Oslo agreements largely subordinated Palestinian needs
to the demands of the Israelis, who utilized them to continue
appropriation of Palestinian land and control entry to, exit from
and travel through Palestinian cities and areas, leaving Palestinian
land and communities disconnected from one another. In fact,
Prime Minister Rabin himself considered the Oslo agreements
to be based on the principle of separation between Palestinians
and Israelis, and thus between the Palestinians and the land
which the Israelis occupied.21
pressure from the UN and US forced Israel back to the
negotiating table.
Originally slated to be completed by March 1996, the Hebron
redeployment had been delayed by the Israeli government.The
February 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians at the Al-Ibrahami
Mosque in Hebron forced the status of the city onto the agenda. The result of the Hebron Protocol of 15 January 1997 was
a further partition of Palestinian territory, with the lines drawn
not according to Palestinian needs, rights or demographics,
but rather according to the existence of settler groups within
the city. Hebron was thus split into sectors H1 and H2, with
H1 being allotted to the PA under Area A arrangements, and
H2 – 20% of the city – remaining under Israeli control and
serving some 450 settlers (and thousands of troops serving
as their guards).
The partition of Hebron had devastating effects on the Palestinian inhabitants of the city, with major streets now closed to
them and many businesses in H2 inaccessible or left without
customers. According to a survey done by the UN’s Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in 2007,
1,829 Palestinian shops located in H2 have closed since 2000
due to military orders, curfews and the closure regime imposed by the Israeli authorities. As a result,
77% of Palestinians in Hebron live below the
poverty line and all are under the constant
threat of settler violence, forcing many to
move away from their homes. Al-Ibrahimi
Mosque also remains in H2, forcing Palestinians who wish to worship there to be
treated as criminals as they attempt to pass
through the entrance checkpoint.
The Hebron Agreement, 1997
Despite the derailment of the Oslo process brought about by
the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin in November
1995, and the subsequent rise of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing and pro-settlement Likud government, international
The Hebron Agreement, 1997
To Jerusalem
To Kiryat Gat
Ras Al-Jura
Harsina
Junction
H2
H1
Israeli
Border
Police HQ
Al-Ibrahimi
Mosque Hebron Bypass
Road
C
H1
Jabal
Jawhar
Jabal Abu
Sneineh
Wadi AlHanya
Shuhada
Street
H2
To Beersheba
To Beersheba
Hebron City Limits
Municipal area transferred to Palestinian Authority (H1)
Municipal area remaining under Israeli rule (H2)
West Bank area under Israeli security rule (Area C)
Road
Israeli settlement
Map: M. Davies, 2001
The Wye River Memorandum, 1998
Following Hebron, further negotiations led
to the Wye River Memorandum (23 October 1998), providing for the long overdue
implementation of Oslo II. By 1998, Israel
had maintained its control of 72% of the
West Bank and 40% of the Gaza Strip, out
of line with previous commitments.The final
text of the Memorandum transferred 13%
of the West Bank from Area C to Area B,
1% from Area C to Area A, and 14.2% from
Area B to Area A. These figures amounted
to an Israeli withdrawal from just 13% of the
West Bank.
The transfers were made contingent on Palestinian cooperation with Israeli ‘security
needs’, and forced the PA to crack down on
political groups and arrest suspects appearing on an Israeli-created list, while settlements continued to grow. Transfers of control began on 20 November 1998, with 2%
of West Bank land being transferred from
Area C to Area B and 7.1% from Area B to
Area A. Netanyahu then suspended the process, leaving the PA with 9.1% of territory,
with 20.9% in Area B and 70% remaining in
Israeli hands.
Said, Edward, The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After, New York:
Panthenon (2000), p. 315.
21
14
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
Sharm Ash-Sheikh Agreement, 1999
Wye River Memorandum, 1998
0
0
20 km
20 km
Jenin
Jenin
GANIM
Tulkarem
Tulkarem
Nablus
Nablus
Qalqilya
ELON MOREH
Qalqilya
ARIEL
ARIEL
SHILO
MODI'IN
ILLIT
MODI'IN
ILLIT
Ramallah
Ramallah
Jericho
GIV'AT
ZE'EV
Jerusalem
GIV'AT
ZE'EV
MA'ALE
ADUMIM
Jericho
Jerusalem
BETAR
MA'ALE
ADUMIM
According to the Oslo Accords a
final status agreement should have
been reached within five years, i.e.,
by the year 2000. On 5 July 2000, US
President Bill Clinton announced his
intention to invite the two parties
to Camp David in order to push for
results. President Arafat requested
that talks be delayed in order not to
weaken Palestinian hopes due to the
unsatisfactory implementation of
the Oslo Accords. Regardless of his
warning, however, invitations were
issued, and on 11 July 2000 President
Arafat and his team arrived at Camp
David.
Camp David Summit, 2000
BETAR
Bethlehem
Bethlehem
EFRAT
Hebron
Hebron
SHIMA
Palestinian Autonomous Areas
(Oslo II-Zones A and B)
Projected areas of further
Israeli redeployment
Israeli settlement,
projected extent
Palestinian Autonomous Areas
(Oslo II-Zones A and B)
Projected areas of further
Israeli redeployment
Israeli settlement,
projected extent
Designated nature reserve
Designated nature reserve
Israeli settlement
Israeli settlement
© Jan de Jong, 2001
The Sharm Ash-Sheikh Agreement, 1999
The Israeli elections of May 1999 heralded further negotiations
regarding Israeli withdrawal. The new Labor government of
Ehud Barak, having pledged in the election to end the conflict
with the Palestinians but to refuse to dismantle settlements,
allow the return of refugees, accept the pre-1967 lines or agree
to Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem, meant that any
initiative would be severely hampered by ignoring legitimate
Palestinian grievances. The Sharm Ash-Sheikh Agreement of
1999 again involved re-negotiation of the Oslo II redeployments.
The outcome was a series of redeployments and a call for final
status talks to begin on 13 September 1999.The transfer protocols called for Israel to move 11% of the West Bank from Area
C to Area B, and 7.1% from Area B to Area A. Israel subsequently transferred 7% from Area C to Area B on 5 September, and
2% from Area B to A and 3% from Area C to B on 15 November 1999, and 1% from Area C to A as well as 5.1% from Area B
to Area A on 20 January 2000. Soon after, however, as the second Intifada erupted at the end of September 2000, the agreement was halted unilaterally with the invasion of the West Bank
and Gaza by the Israeli army (“Operation Defense Shield”).
PASSIA
2 0 0 0 s : CAM P DAVI D
& BE YON D
Unsurprisingly, the talks failed to
reach any agreement. Israeli Prime
Minister Barak offered to form a
Palestinian state on Gaza territory
and an unacceptable 73% of the
West Bank (27% less than the Green
Line borders), which in 10-25 years
would expand to a maximum of 92%
of the West Bank. Besides this, Israel
demanded that Arafat declare the
conflict over and make no further
demands, as well as to maintain its
control of the West Bank’s water
resources.
In rejecting the offer,Arafat was vilified
in the media; many international
observers considered Barak’s offer
© Jan de Jong, 2001
as “generous,” bluntly ignoring the
reality of Israel’s occupation. Judged
from the perspective of Palestinians’
and Israelis’ respective rights under international law, all the
concessions at Camp David came from the Palestinian side,
none from the Israeli side. Firstly, Israel’s obligations as defined
by international law – withdrawal from all occupied territories
(UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338), on which
also the Madrid and Oslo agreements were based – were
contradicted by Barak’s “offer.”
Secondly, the terms of the offer precluded the creation of
an independent Palestinian state prima facie. The territory
offered would be demilitarized and surrounded on all sides by
Israel, which would maintain the ability to unilaterally invade
and crush the fledgling state “in the event of an emergency.”
The border between Jordan and Palestine would be under
Israeli control. In addition, Israel would regulate Palestinian
foreign affairs, ensuring it did not enter into friendly relations
with states inimical to Israel.
Third, the Israeli proposal planned to annex areas which
would lead to the partition of the West Bank into three
blocs (northern and southern West Bank and the Jericho
area). Settlements and a network of Israeli-only bypass roads
would create physical barriers between West Bank cities,
15
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
severely hampering movements within and among those
blocs. In short, Israel’s offer precluded the creation of a viable,
sovereign, Palestinian state and looked ‘generous’ only if
observers did not take into account historic Palestinian rights.
Camp David Projections, 2000
Proposed Palestinian
sovereignty
Initially Israeli-designated
security zone, to be transferred
to Palestinian sovereignty
Jenin
Israeli cities and settlements
shown at projected size
Network of existing or
planned Israeli thoroughfares
Tulkarem
Nablus
The Taba Talks, 2001
While each side accepted the Parameters with reservations,
talks restarted at Taba, lasting from 21 to 27 January 2001.The
negotiators later stated that they were as close as they had
ever been to reaching an agreement, even though many issues
remained far from being concluded. However, with Ehud Barak
losing the election weeks later, the Foreign Ministry under the
new Prime Minister Sharon immediately released a statement
denouncing any agreements, stating “that the ideas which
were brought up in the course of the recent negotiations
conducted with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority,
including those raised at the Camp David Summit and by
President Clinton towards the end of his term in office, are
not binding on the new government to be formed in Israel.”
Once again, negotiations between the two sides reached an
impasse.
Qalqilya
Taba Talks, 2001
Tel Aviv
Annexation areas:
41 settlements
65% of settlers
Ramallah
Jenin
Jericho
West Bank
Palestinian Area: 94%
Jerusalem
87 Israeli settlements
35% of Israeli settlers
Bethlehem
Tulkarem
West Bank division
with number of Israeli settlements
and percentage of settlers,
excluding East Jerusalem
Gaza
Nablus
ELON MOREH
Qalqilya
Hebron
Khan
Younis
MA'ALE
EFRAIM
ARIEL
SHILO
Rafah
0
20 km
Map: © Jan de Jong, 2001
WEST
BANK
Tel
Aviv
Although the Camp David talks failed, President Clinton
remained determined to succeed in the Middle East peace
process. Despite the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada,
Clinton issued his ‘parameters’ on 23 December 2000 as
a basis for further negotiations. The ‘Clinton Parameters”
proposed a Palestinian state on 94-96% of the West Bank;
annexation of settlement blocs by Israel, containing 80%
of total settlers; Jerusalem to be an open city, with “What
is Arab should be Palestinian” and “what is Jewish should
be Israeli;” temporary international and Israeli presence
in the Jordan Valley; Palestinian sovereignty over its own
airspace; return of refugees to the Palestinian state, or
to a third state in line with those countries’ sovereign
decisions; and a final end to the conflict. The principles
did not mention Gaza, but it was later confirmed
that Palestine was to receive 100% of the Gaza Strip.
Jerusalem
GAZA
STRIP
MODI'IN
ILLIT
Ramallah
Gaza
No Man's Land as
defined in the 1949
Armistice Agreement
Jewish state according to
UN Partition Plan, 1947
Jericho
GIV'AT
ZE'EV
Jerusalem
BETAR
Palestinian state according
to UN Partition Plan, 1947
MA'ALE
ADUMIM
Bethlehem
EFRAT
Projected Palestinan state
according to the Israeli
proposal, Jan. 2001
Palestinian Autonomous Areas
Areas A and B, 2001
Hebron
Proposed Palestinian sovereignty
Israeli annexation areas
Israeli territory offered as part
of a 3% land swap
0
Israeli settlement
16
20 km
SHIMA
© Jan de Jong 2001
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
The Road Map, 2003
On 24 June 2002, US President Bush outlined his vision of
peace in the Middle East, calling for the creation of “an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and
security alongside Israel.”22Apparently, the American administration had recognized that the only solution for the IsraeliPalestinian conflict was to end the occupation, to halt further settlement activity and to establish a Palestinian state. By
2003, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq propelled a drive
to demonstrate to the world that the US administration was
serious about making progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue,
and in a response to the intense violence and bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000, as well as the launch of the Arab Peace
Initiative at the Arab League summit in Beirut in March 2002,
the US-led Middle East Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia) issued its Roadmap for Peace in 2003, setting out guidelines
supposed to culminate in a two-state solution within three
years.23 For the first time since the 1947 UN Partition Plan,
“the international community succeeded in articulating a single, unified, and comprehensive vision for resolving the ArabIsraeli conflict, which included the creation of an independent
Palestinian state” on 22% of historic Palestine.24
The 2003 Road Map for Peace set out three phases. The first
was designed to end Palestinian-Israeli violence, freeze Israeli
settlement activity (including natural growth), dismantle outposts, strengthen and reform the PA, and ease the harsh conditions created by the Israeli security crackdown since 2001
on the Palestinians. The second phase would lead to the creation of a provisional Palestinian state with temporary borders whereas final negotiations on the permanent borders of
a Palestinian state, the refugee issue and the status of Jerusalem would be held in a third and final phase, culminating in international recognition for both states, Palestine and Israel, by
2005. However, since the Road Map was not the outcome of
negotiations between the parties to the conflict, neither the
Israeli government nor the Palestinians were in fact persuaded
that it would ever be fully implemented or that it was anything
more than a “diplomatic feel-good exercise.”25
Originally due to be published by 20 December 2002, initially
heated Israeli objections – requesting over 100 changes to the
map’s structure – prevented this. Further delays came about
due to Israeli elections, the war in Iraq, the nomination and
installation of a Palestinian Prime Minister and the creation of
a new PA government. The Road Map was finally published on
30 April 2003. Upon presentation, the Palestinians cited some
concerns over its content but accepted it in its entirety, while
the Israeli government – under US pressure – only accepted
“the steps set out in the Road Map,” not the Road Map itself, citing 14 key reservations. Among them were the recognition of
the Israeli right to exist as a Jewish state (itself a veiled attack
on the right of return - UN Resolution 194), the waiver of the
right of return and demands that certain aspects of Palestinian sovereignty be subject to Israeli control, such as borders,
airspaces and the electromagnetic spectrum. The US stated
22
Speech by George W. Bush, 24 June 2002, published by The Guardian, 25
June 2002, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/25/israel.usa.
23
Sharon Otterman, “Middle East: The Road Map to Peace,” Council on
Foreign Relations, 7 February 2005, athttp://www.cfr.org/middle-east-andnorth-africa/middle-east-road-map-peace/p7738.
24
Khaled Elgindy, “The Middle East Quartet: Post Mortem,” Brookings
Institution, Analysis Paper 25 (February 2012), p. 9.
25
International Crisis Group, “A Middle East Road Map to Where?”
Journal of Palestine Studies, XXXII no. 4 (Summer 2003), p. 83-87, at http://
www.palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/5601.pdf.
PASSIA
that it would take into account Israel reservations, but that
that the Road Map as it stood was final and “non-negotiable.”
Recognizing this, the UN Security Council subsequently adopted Resolution 1515 (2003), which recalled Resolution 242
and endorsed the Middle East Quartet’s Road Map towards a
permanent, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A summit meeting to begin implementing the Road Map
was held in Aqaba, Jordan, on 4 June 2003.
President Bush, Prime Ministers Abbas and Sharon at Aqaba, June 2003
However, as early as July 2003, the Road Map stalled at its first
phase. Ironically, this was one thing both Palestinian and Israeli
officials soon could agree on. The Israeli government blamed
the Palestinians for failing to rein in the “suicide bombers”
and gunmen of Hamas and other militant groups; according to
the Palestinians, Israel was not committed to ending its settlement expansion and continued to create facts on the ground
by constructing a separation barrier on Palestinian land, hence
actively undermining a viable two-state solution. While Palestinians had accepted the Road Map because it specified
obligations for both sides and enjoyed international support,
they soon believed that it would not lead anywhere and was
instead used as a carrot and stick against the Palestinians.
By November 2003, it was clear that the obligations laid out
in the Road Map had not been fulfilled.The Road Map remains
unimplemented as settlement growth continues and further
Palestinian land is confiscated in order to facilitate this. Nevertheless, its stipulations somewhat remain the baseline for
Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, though the specific dates in
the plan no longer apply.
The Geneva Accord, 2003
On 1 December 2003 the Geneva Accord was formally
launched in a ceremony in Switzerland attended by hundreds
of people. Israeli delegates include Yossi Belin, Amram Mitzna,
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, David Grossman, Amos Oz, Mossi Raz,
and Shulamit Aloni, and Palestinian delegates Yasser Abed Rabbo, Jibril Rajoub, Hisham Abdul Razzeq, and Kadura Fares. Also
attending were Knesset members Taleb As-Sana (United Arab
List), Mohammed Barakeh, and Issam Mahoul (Hadash). President Arafat sent a letter of support, urging Sharon to back the
plan as a path to a complete and just peace but also calling
for implementation of UN Resolution 194 on the Palestinian
refugees’ right of return. Main points of the Geneva Accord
included that Jerusalem be divided administratively (not physically), with Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem becoming
part of the Palestinian state, and most Jewish settlements in
and around East Jerusalem part of Israel.The Haram Ash-Shar-
17
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
if Compound was to be under Palestinian sovereignty, with
an international force ensuring freedom of access for visitors
of all faiths. The Western Wall and the Jewish quarter would
remain under Jewish sovereignty and the ‘Holy Basin’ area
be under international supervision. Most settlements in the
West Bank and Gaza were to be dismantled while Ariel, Efrat
and Har Homa would become part of the Palestinian state.
In addition, Israel was to transfer parts of the Negev adjacent
to Gaza, but not including Halutza, to the Palestinians in exchange for the parts of the West Bank.
Projection of Israel’s West Bank Partition Plan, 2008
The Disengagement from Gaza and the Northern
West Bank, 2005
Far from being a step in return to the Road Map, the Israeli
government announced in 2004 to implement a unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank, hoping that this would be “a blow to the Palestinians, in that it will force them to give up on their aspirations
[to statehood] for many years to come.”26 The US fell soon in
line with Sharon’s plan which expressly intended to sideline
the Road Map and indefinitely postpone the Quartet’s vision
of a Palestinian state.
Even with the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the settler population continued to grow steadily, reaching 534,224
by 2010. A refusal to freeze the building of new settlements
and the growth of existing settlements is not only contrary
to the obligations set out in the Road Map; it also constitutes
a creeping annexation more Palestinian land, furthering the
partition of the West Bank into colonized settlements and
Palestinian cantons. While the separation barrier erected by
Israel is the most visible sign of the enclosure of the Palestinian population, its static nature masks the slowly growing
separation of Palestinian communities through the expansion
of settlements.
PA LE STI N E TO DAY: A R E A C
The Annapolis Conference, 2007
The goal of the process set off by the Annapolis conference,
launched by President George W. Bush in November 2007
in a bid to revive the Israeli–Palestinian peace process and
implement the Road Map, was to reach a peace agreement
by the end of 2008. Although the event marked the first time
both sides entered a conference with a common understanding
that the final state of Palestinian-Israeli peace will be a twostate solution, no meaningful achievements on settlements and
borders were made in the subsequent negotiations.
Maps presented thereafter by Israel outlining its permanent
territorial demands in the West Bank provided for Palestinian
territorial contiguity only via roads and tunnels, confirming
wide-ranging Israeli security and settlement intentions
throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem that made
the creation of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state
impossible.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon interview, Ha’aretz, Pesach Supplement, 5
April 2004.
26
18
The failure of Oslo and the Road Map to Peace has left the
land of Palestine in a state of partition; although it was intended as a temporary measure when it was initially negotiated,
the situation looks more and more like a permanent arrangement as times passes by without a peace settlement. Today,
Palestinian lands are split between Gaza and the West Bank,
with the latter itsef divided into areas A, B and C. At present, Area A equals 17.2% of the West Bank, Area B 23.8%, and
Area C, which is under full Israeli control, some 59%. These
varied zones of control effectively support further settlement
development and hamper Palestinian life through limited access to resources, the encirclement of their communities, and
the destruction of economic assets. Palestinians living in Area
C have the choice between enduring the ongoing hardship
under full Israeli occupation or relocating to areas A or B.
Since May 2013, the Israeli military has forcibly evicted around
400 Palestinians from their homes in Area C and destroyed
numerous Palestinian businesses and infrastructures, leading
the European Union to brand Israeli actions as ‘forced transfer.’ The intention of Israel is clear in action and in words:
by removing the Palestinians from the land, it makes way for
continued settlement growth as well as for annexation and integration into Israel.The report of the government-appointed
Levy Committee published in 2012 called for the annexation
of these areas and the legalization of settlements; Defense
Minister Moshe Yaalon backed the report, while Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Naftali Bennett supported
actively calls for Area C to be annexed.
PASSIA
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
West Bank Area C, 2011
¥
Border
International Border
Green Line
for removing them by declaring the land a live fire zone
or an archeological dig site, and for making room for Israeli settlement infrastructure development. Area C contains 63% of the West Bank’s agricultural land and the use
of military orders to confiscate land not only strangles
the livelihood of a large number of Palestinians – denying them the opportunity to be self-sufficient – but also
provides a boost to the wealth of the settlers.
Jenin
Israeli Unilaterally Declared
1
Municipal Area of Jerusalem
1. In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and unilaterally annexed
to its territory 70.5 km of the occupied area
Barrier
Oslo Agreement
Tubas
Tulkarm
Constructed / Under Construction
Planned
2
Area (A), (B)
Nablus
Qalqiliya
Area C & Nature Reserves
Oslo Interim Agreement
Area A : Full Palestinian civil and security control
Area B: Full Palestinian civil control and joint IsraeliPalestinian security control
Area C: Full Israeli control over security, planning
and construction
2.
rran
ean
Sea
Ramallah
Med
ite
No Man's
Land
Jericho
West
Bank
e
Lin
ice )
ist ne
rm n Li
A
e
49 re
19 (G
Gaza
Strip
East Jerusalem
Additionally, these settlements remain illegal under international law even if Israeli courts decide to ‘legalize’
them. Allowing settlement of occupied land is criminalized by Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention,
and numerous United Nations resolutions and International Criminal Court judgments have recognized this
fact. By settling land, an occupying state can gradually
expel the native population and create conditions under
which eventual annexation becomes a possibility.
Bethlehem
$
Dead S
ea
ISRAEL
EGYPT
River Jordan
Salfit
The existence of Area C and the practice of continued
settlement growth is something which undermines any
peace process. The idea of the two-state solution rests
on the feasibility of establishing a Palestinian state in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, by continuing settlement growth and prejudicing the development of Palestinians who reside in Area C, the Israeli government is
slowly chipping away at the viability of such a solution.
This reality is recognized by virtually all the peace initiatives seeking to bring an end to the conflict.
JORDAN
Hebron
Israeli Settlements - Population Growth
and Concentrations, 1995-2011
Territorial Distribution
of Israeli Settlers
Population Increase / Decrease
by Settlement Bloc
Oslo Areas
A and B
Oslo Area C
beyond Bloc
REHAN
Settlement
Bloc Area :
Adapted from a map published
by OCHA, February 2011.
30%
7%
The fundamental need for housing, water, sanitation, healthcare and schooling has forced Palestinians in Area C – as they
are legally and morally entitled to – to build ‘illegal’ housing
and infrastructure. These structures frequently face destruction by Israeli authorities, provoking the displacement of people. In 2011, 149 homes were destroyed, and between 2009
and 2011 over 100 water and sanitation facilities. However,
this is but one way in which Palestinians in Area C lose access
to their land: military warrants also provide a ‘legal’ pretext
PASSIA
DOTAN
Tulkarm
Tubas
ENAV
63%
Nablus
ZUFIM
SHOMRON
Qalkilya
1-3%
of all settlers
JORDAN
VALLEY
3-5%
of all settlers
8 - 12 %
of all settlers
ARIEL
Salfit
36 %
of all settlers
TALMON
Israeli
Settlement
Settlement
Outpost
Strong
Growth
Substantial
Growth
Steady
Growth
Moderate
Growth
Decrease
(Dotan)
Area of Decrease
within Bloc
REHAN ...
+ 215 %
DOTAN ...
-
ENAV
+ 236 %
...
MOUNTAIN
RIDGE
River
dan
Jor
Rather than freezing the expansion of settlements – a PA precondition for renewing negotiations – the Israeli government
has expanded them. In 2012, settlements in the West Bank increased by nearly 8,000 dunums, approved by military order.
This land, whose occupation is ‘legalized’ by the Israeli state, is
acquired through a mixture of purchases, squatting, and expropriation. Expansion is assisted by the nature of Area C control:
the 150,000 Palestinians in Area C face impossible hurdles in
gaining building permits for housing and infrastructure, as less
than 1% of the land is permitted to be developed by Palestinians, resulting in around 94% of building applications being
rejected. By doing so, Israeli authorities ensure that the land
remains available for the ‘natural growth’ of settlements, which
slowly force Palestinians from their land, and precludes the
possibility of creating a continuous and viable Palestinian state.
Jenin
Indicated
according to
Population
Increase or
Decrease
Ramallah
MODI’IN
Jericho
GIVON
J'lem
ISRAEL
ADUMIM
5%
ZUFIM ...
+ 188 %
SHOMRON ...
+ 150 %
ARIEL ...
+ 170 %
TALMON ...
+ 293 %
ETZION
WEST
ETZION
EAST
MODIÍN ...
+ 1.470 %
MOUNTAIN ... + 327 %
RIDGE
JORDAN...
VALLEY
+
170 %
ADUMIM ...
+
213 %
GIV’ON ...
+
185 %
EAST- JLM. ...
+
153 %
ETZION W. ...
+
394 %
ETZION E. ...
+
250 %
HEBRON ...
HILLS
+
170 %
B'Lehem
DEAD
Hebron
SEA
HEBRON
HILLS
10 Km
Copyright © Jan de Jong
19
FRAGMENTING
PALESTINE
Formulas for Partition since the British Mandate
Where to?
The appointment of John Kerry as US President Barack Obama’s
new Secretary of State for his second term in office has seen yet
another drive for restarting the negotiations between Israelis
and Palestinians, which had broken down in 2010 after a dispute
over Israeli settlement construction. Since January 2013, Kerry
has been engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Prime Minister
Netanyahu and President Abbas, hoping to show progress before the scheduled UN General Assembly debate on the Middle
East in September, an event the Israelis fear will strengthen Palestinian unilateral moves towards statehood.
President Abbas has insisted that settlement construction be
halted before talks resume, and that Israel recognize the pre1967 borders as a basis for the negotiation of the frontiers of
the future Palestinian state. However, Israel wants negotiations
without preconditions and ignores the fact that a settlement
freeze is in fact not a precondition but an obligation based
on prior Israeli-Palestinian agreements and international law.
Notwithstanding the above, in June 2013, Israel approved an
extra 1,169 settlement units, while 10 Palestinian homes were
demolished, and another eight were occupied by settlers.
While Kerry has offered a $4 billion incentive plan to the Palestinians to begin negotiations and has simultaneously made veiled
threats against any Palestinian efforts to unilaterally upgrade
their status in the UN or the International Court of Justice,
he has proven unable to reign in illegal Israeli actions which
prevent these negotiations from taking place. Considering that
those actions are illegal and counter to prior bilateral agreements, pressuring the Palestinians to back down on their just
demands for a cessation of settlement activity is immoral and
shows that the US is a dishonest broker. Furthermore, while the
official position of the Israeli government is to support a twostate solution, Israeli officials have on more than one occasion
publicly declared their opposition to it: Zvulun Kalfa (HaBayit
HaYehudi Party) has stated that the historic right of the state
of Israel is to stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, while Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor
Naftali Bennet has declared that “The idea of a Palestinian state
reached a dead end. There has never been so much time invested in something so pointless… we should build, build, build
[settlements].”27 Likewise, Kerry’s efforts have sidelined Hamas,
which has resulted in the movement denouncing the “mirage” of
negotiations, complicating even further the negotiation process.
Despite its one-sidedness, partition – or the two-state solution – remains a key part of peace plans proposed by interested international parties. Reflecting this, the official Palestinian policy since Oslo has been centered on the two-state
solution and negotiations have therefore remained centered
on partitioning historic Palestine and creating an independent
Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza.
However, in light of the ongoing Israeli settlement policies,
support for a one-state solution, i.e., a bi-national democratic
state across the whole of historic Palestine, is growing. On 15
May 2013, around 30 prominent members of Fatah published
a statement entitled “The popular movement project for one
democratic state in historic Palestine.”28 Such calls are both a
reflection of the stagnation of the two-state solution, and an
indication of the belief that the only truly just solution would
be one in which both Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4393326,00.html.
Amira Hass, “Senior Fatah officials call for single democratic state, not
two-state solution,” Haaretz, 17 May 2013.
27
side by side and enjoy the same rights
and privileges. The
Israeli government is
vehemently opposed
to this idea as the resulting state would no
longer be qualitatively
or
demographically
‘Jewish’ in character,
something that is frequently presented as
an existential threat
to the Jewish people.
Moreover, the reference point for the
international community, both in the Western and Arab world, is
UN Resolution 242,
which would result in
the implementation of
a two-state solution.
As such, the idea of a
one-state solution remains one which has the backing of certain groups but lacks
the requisite political support to become a focal point of the
future of Palestine.This said, decades after the first attempts to
partition Palestine to accommodate the wishes of the Zionist
movement and Western powers in total disregard of the will
of the indigenous population, and more than 20 years after
negotiations set out to reach a fair resolution of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the result is not partition but in fact an
entrenched fragmentation of the territory, of its resources,
and of its people. As the creation of a sovereign and viable
Palestinian state appears more and more out of reach, it is no
surprise that the idea of a bi-national state encompassing the
whole of historic Palestine is increasingly discussed as the only
solution left to the Palestinians to preserve their geographical,
national and cultural integrity.
Copyright © PASSIA
Palestinian Academic Society for the
Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-6264426 / 628-6566
Fax: +972-2-6282819,
E-mail: passia@passia.org
18, Hatem Al-Ta’i Street - Wadi Al-Joz
PO Box 19545, Jerusalem / Al-Quds
Kindly supported by the Friedrich
Ebert Stiftung (FES), Jerusalem
28
20
PASSIA